At 12:36 AM, moments after India’s women lifted the 2025 World Cup trophy in front of a roaring crowd at DY Patil, Mandira Bedi wrote a short, heartfelt tweet. Most people didn’t notice it.
What a journey. What a fight. Sweet victory, so well deserved ! Big congratulations to Team India! Women’s cricket has come SUCH a long way. ❤️🇮🇳🙌🏽
— mandira bedi (@mandybedi) November 2, 2025
The internet was overflowing with edits, reels, and victory posts. But that one tweet came from someone who had seen this journey long before it became a headline. Mandira’s support didn’t begin after the win. She had been part of the fight when women’s cricket barely had a pulse.
When she walked into a man’s world
Back in the early 2000s, cricket shows on TV in India were almost completely run by men. They controlled the commentary boxes, the discussion panels, and pretty much every corner of the cricket world on screen.
Then came Mandira Bedi, a popular TV actress, walking into the 2003 World Cup studio in sleeveless tops and bright smiles.
To many, she didn’t belong. And they said it, loudly.
She was mocked, ridiculed, written off as “the extra in Extraaa Innings.” People talked more about her clothes than her questions. Some panelists, men who’d played hundreds of matches, barely acknowledged her presence. It wasn’t just public criticism. It was loneliness dressed as lights and camera.
But Mandira didn’t walk away. She stayed. She studied the game late at night, printed her own stats, learned every rule, and kept showing up.
That’s what makes her story powerful. She didn’t enter cricket as a player, but she fought the same kind of battle the women’s team was fighting outside the studio: the right to simply exist in the game.
The invisible years of women’s cricket
While Mandira faced sneers inside air-conditioned studios, the women’s team had a tougher fight on the field, not against opponents, but poverty.
Before BCCI took over, women’s cricket ran on borrowed dreams. Players travelled in general train compartments, shared kits, and sometimes had to stay in strangers’ homes during foreign tours because there wasn’t enough money for hotels. They weren’t chasing fame. They were chasing belief.
Belief that someday, someone would notice.
When Mandira stepped in
Between 2003 and 2005, Indian women’s cricket was struggling to find even one sponsor.
Mandira, then the face of Asmi jewellery, saw what was happening. She had no reason to step in. She wasn’t part of the team, wasn’t managing anyone. But she did something rare. She gave up her own endorsement fee and convinced Asmi to sponsor the women’s team’s ODI series against West Indies in 2004.
That one act didn’t just fund a few plane tickets to England. It gave the team dignity. It made people in boardrooms look twice. Former cricketer and WCAI secretary Shubhangi Kulkarni said Mandira’s involvement was a turning point. It made the corporate world realise that women’s cricket was worth investing in.
Her silent impact
Most people remember the stars who play on the field, but some of the real heroes worked quietly in the background. Mandira’s courage, both in facing ridicule and in backing a forgotten sport, became part of women’s cricket’s DNA.
She opened doors that didn’t exist.
First, for women in cricket broadcasting.
Then, for women cricketers who were waiting for someone to believe in them.
Her journey mirrors theirs. Entering a world that didn’t think she belonged, and staying until it did.
From struggle to celebration
Today, things looked completely different. Indian women’s team now plays in front of full stadiums, with sponsorship deals, TV rights, and fans who chant every player’s name. Their World Cup win isn’t just about the final. It’s about the foundation.
Behind those medals lies the story of a woman who once stood in a studio, doubted by everyone, and still chose to back another group of women the world didn’t believe in.
Mandira Bedi’s contribution may not appear in record books or highlight reels, but it lives in the quiet gratitude of an entire generation of players who finally got their stage.
That historical night, her tweet barely made the news. But maybe that’s how some stories are meant to end. Not with applause, but with a knowing smile. Because those who truly shaped the game often did it when nobody was watching.
